Writer & Advocate

Crystal Williams began her career in the arts as an actress, working in Washington, D.C., before moving to New York to pursue a career in the arts. Once in New York, she transitioned from theater to performance and poetry, becoming a regular at the Nuyorican Poets Café in the mid-90s, where she earned a spot on the 1995 Nuyorican Slam Team, which competed in the National Slam in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her highly anthologized performance poem, "In Search of Aunt Jemima," continues to be regularly performed by new generations of young women more than twenty years later.

Williams, a poet and essayist, has published four collections of poems, most recently Detroit as Barn, a finalist for the National Poetry Series, Cleveland State Open Book Prize, and the Maine Book Award. Her third collection, Troubled Tongues, was awarded the 2009 Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize and was a finalist for the 2009 Oregon Book Award, the Idaho Poetry Prize, and the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize. Her first two books, Kin and Lunatic, were published by Michigan State University Press in 2000 and 2002. Her work has regularly appeared in the nation's leading journals and magazines, including American Poetry Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, PEN: America, The Indiana Review, The Sun, Tin House, Ms. Magazine, Ploughshares, and Callaloo. Likewise, her poems appear in numerous anthologies, including Angles of Ascent: The Norton Anthology of African American Poetry, American Poetry: The Next Generation, Efforts and Affections, and Rainbow Darkness.

Williams' poem, Elegy for Us, in response to Faith Ringold's American People Series #20: Die, was recently commissioned by and is part of the permanent poetry tour at MoMA. She was also one of ten poets commissioned by the MoMA to write poems as a part of the Jacob Lawrence Migration Series exhibit. As a result of that commission, she wrote Double Helix, which was included in The Best American Poetry 2017 anthology, selected by Natasha Trethewey.

In early 2016, she joined Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, in a conversation about "Cultural Equity," which was a part of the "Equity Series," a collaboration between the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and MoMA. Williams has served as moderator for multiple arts-related conversations, most recently a 2020 talk hosted by WBUR titled "Black Boston: Transforming the Arts." 

Additional honors, awards, and fellowships include a fellowship from the MacDowell Arts Colony, an appointment as the Distinguished Visiting Professor of University Writing at DePauw University, a "Master Poet" residency at Indiana University, a Literary Arts fellowship, an Oregon Arts Commission individual artist grant, and a Barbara Deming/Money For Women artist grant, among others. 

An ardent arts advocate, Williams regularly engages in leadership positions within the arts community and has served on multiple arts or Humanities-related boards and selection panels, including as a board member for the Maine Humanities Council, Write Around Portland, and The Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center; on the Oregon Poet Laureate Selection Committee; as a judge for the 2015 Donald Hall Poetry Prize, Regional Arts and Culture Council Literary Arts Fellowship, and the Oregon Arts Commission Individual Fellowship; on the Governor's Ad Hoc Committee to Reduce the Achievement Gap; and on the editorial board for The Writer's Chronicle. She also consults with arts and humanities-focused organizations to further identify and integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into their work.  

In 2011, Williams was appointed to the Oregon Arts Commission and, in her role as a state-wide arts commissioner and advocate, worked to broaden access in the arts and help arts and philanthropic organizations operationalize their goals to become more diverse and inclusive.

Raised in Detroit, Michigan, and Madrid, Spain, Crystal Williams holds degrees from New York University and Cornell University. She was on faculty at Reed College in Portland, Oregon for thirteen years before moving in Fall 2013 to Bates College, where she was a Professor of English and a senior administrator. In late 2017 she joined Boston University where she served as Vice President and Associate Provost for Community & inclusion and Professor of English at Boston University. On April 1, 2022, Williams became the 18th President of Rhode Island School of Design.

Advocate & Leader

In October 2017, Crystal Williams joined Boston University as Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion. In 2020 she became Vice President and Associate Provost for Community & Inclusion, with an expanded portfolio that includes BU's Arts Initiative, Organizational Development and Learning, the Newbury Center, the LGBTQIA+ Faculty/Staff Center, academic Living and Learning Centers, in addition to BU Diversity & Inclusion. 

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Williams began her career at Reed College, where she became a faculty activist, envisioning a more inclusive and diverse institution, helping to catalyze a collective of faculty members who shared the same goals and objectives. Over a decade, she worked collaboratively and strategically to help effectuate significant institutional change. As a result, she was appointed Reed's inaugural Dean for Institutional Diversity. As dean, she developed the footprint for a significant new office of the college and partnered with the President and Dean of the Faculty to initiate a series of strategic endeavors to diversify the faculty further as well as lay the groundwork for the creation of a new teaching and learning center, among other initiatives.  

In Fall 2013, Williams moved to Bates College, where she sat on the cabinet and served as Associate Vice President for Strategic Initiatives. At Bates, she was charged with developing institutional strategy, creating initiatives, and positively affecting climate. Reporting to the President, she worked closely with her fellow senior leaders in admission, academic affairs, advancement and alumni relations, student affairs, and human resources. Williams' work called her to develop new, institutionally significant programs; catalyze people; operationalize ideas; leverage organizational inflection points, systematically address and improve institutional culture; and build organizational capacity.

Specifically, she worked on faculty development, faculty, staff, student recruitment and retention, alumni development and Board stewardship, administered major institutional grants, and conceived and oversaw the implementation of distinctive institution-wide programs. In 2014, she co-wrote a 1 million dollar faculty diversity grant funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which resulted in positive outcomes in faculty recruitment. She also spearheaded Bates' acceptance into the Creating Connections Consortium. Under her vision and leadership, the Office of Intercultural Education was nearly doubled in size and moved to a central location on campus. Williams oversaw creating student-facing programs such as Bobcat First! a year-long, first-generation-to-college cohort program, an institution-wide storytelling program called The Dinner Table, SPARQ!, a multi-pronged program to support LGBTQIA+ identified people and their allies, and an on-going college-wide conversation called Lingua Franca. Further, Williams envisioned and oversaw the Bates Alumni Mosiac (BAM), which engaged alumni and parents from diverse backgrounds both on campus and via regional events across the nation.

During her time at Bates, she co-chaired the national organization Liberal Arts Diversity Officers (LADO), a consortium of CDOs at liberal arts colleges, and served on the executive committee of the Creating Connections Consortium (C3).

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At Boston University, Williams developed the institution's inaugural diversity officer role (Associate Provost for Diversity & Inclusion) and office, reporting to the University Provost. Her work at BU focused on laying a strategic foundation upon which additional transformative diversity, equity, and inclusion work could rest. That work included:

• building diversity, equity, and inclusion capacity across BU's leadership teams, specifically focused on knowledge and skill development; 

• catalyzing, convening, and connecting communities;

• creating and overseeing institution-wide endeavors such as the LGBTQIA+ Task Force, the Inclusive Pedagogy Initiative, Inclusive Catalysts Grants, the Learn More series, DEI training and learning, a robust DEI website, and revised faculty search processes, among other things; 

• influencing how DEI work is defined, communicated, and reported; 

• organizing and aligning DEI practitioners across BU's two campuses;

• and helping to influence the integration of DEI practices across multiple university areas, including in institutional research, procurement, graduate affairs, and within the schools and colleges, as appropriate. 

She also oversaw BU’s Organizational Development and Learning function, university-wide Arts Initiative, BU’s inaugural Newbury Center (serving students who are first in their families to graduate from a 4-year institution), and the institution’s academic Living and Learning Communities. With her focus on the development of robust, energetic and healthy communities in which all members of the community thrive, Williams’ focus was on the complete integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion work as an essential function of community development work. She left BU in mid-January 2022 in advance of assuming the presidency of Rhode Island School of Design on April 1, 2022.